In the May 11 & 25 SN: High-tech cricket farming, AI learns from Minecraft, looking for lithium, a new hominid species is named, signs of life in dead pig brains, Cherokee cave texts decoded, water molecules on the moon and more.

Luhan Yang, 31BiologisteGenesis

Biologist Luhan Yang dreams of pig organs that will one day fly — into people. If she has her way, animal farms will raise herds of bioengineered pigs, designed to produce kidneys, livers and other organs that could be transplanted into humans. Animal parts would slip seamlessly into people, easing their suffering.

“There are millions of patients worldwide waiting for organ transplants,” says Yang, who is chief scientific officer of eGenesis, a biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass. “It’s such a huge unmet need.”

Researchers have long dreamed of using animal organs to alleviate the shortage of human ones, a field called

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